1st May, Wednesday
The morning bell rang, and right at that time, the door opened as Chabashira walked into the class. Her expression was a bit more grim and serious than always, which was easily noticed by most of the students.
Thinking about it, Yamauchi looked at her stats, and sure enough, none of her stats were detectable yet. Surprisingly, her 'class' was shown as 1-D too.
"Sensei~ Are you in menopause?" Ike shamelessly asked, grinning.
Yamauchi sighed. It was at these times that he regretted keeping that guy as his friend.
Ignoring Ike, Chabashira asked, "Alright. Morning homeroom is starting, Are there any questions before we start? If there's something on your mind, feel free to speak up."
'Huh… it seems she knows about the points. Ah well, of course she does…' Yamauchi thought, as he raised his hand along with several others.
However, contrary to everyone's expectations, Chabashira firmly stated that the points were deposited. When everyone was trying to understand what Chabashira meant, a loud laughter echoed through the class.
"Hahaha, I see, it was like that, teacher. I understood this riddle now." It was Koenji, with his feet on the table, he spoke as if it were a matter of fact. "We didn't receive any points because we are in class D."
'Huh? Why wouldn't we get any points just because we are in class D? That doesn't make any sense…' Yamauchi calmly thought, not speaking anything. He already knew that the students were not divided randomly into the classes with all the data he had, but would that affect the points they got? '...Or does it?'
While Hirata was arguing about something with Chabashira, Yamauchi tried to make sense of what was happening. He already knew from Hana and Kaito that they both got points, but less than 100k.
He heard Chabashira speaking, "87 total absences and tardies. 369 incidences of talking and using cell phones in class. I counted every infraction. In this school, your class performance is reflected in the amount of points received. As a result, the 100,000 points you would have gotten went down the drain. That's all that happened."
After that, Hirata kept arguing, trying to get more information and explanations. But Chabashira ruthlessly cut him down everytime. Realising that he was not going to get any points at least this month, Yamauchi took out his phone and checked the balance. 31,870 it read.
As the bell rang, Chabashira took out a white paper and pinned it on the board.
Class A - 940
Class B - 650
Class C - 490
Class D - 0
With that, another round of chaos by students and ruthless answers by Chabashira started.
"Sensei, you said that the 'best' students are placed in class A, while the worst in class D. How exactly does the school evaluate the students as 'best' and 'worst' then? I can tell that it's not solely on Academic or Athletic ability." Yamauchi spoke up for the first time.
This was the thing he was thinking about for the past few weeks. He was more interested in the school's way of judging students rather than private points.
"And even if they somehow sort them all into best and worst then place them in class accordingly, what even is the point of competition then? Why would the school even expect the worst to somehow defeat the best?" He continued, before Chabashira could even say anything. "And even if we are the absolute worst students, why bother giving us admission and wasting the taxpayers' money? This school is said to be the best in Japan, so why not pick the top 160 students and make them compete rather than only 40?"
The whole class listened to Yamauchi's questions without making a single noise. To say Chabashira was shocked would be an understatement. Apart from the first one, she herself had not thought of these questions, so she was surprised to see them coming from Yamauchi, who was supposed to be an ideal class D student.
"Ahem… Nice questions, Yamauchi. But we are not allowed to answer any of these questions from the school." She shamelessly lied, then changed the topic. "Anyways, I still have one more piece of bad news I have to tell you guys."
She put another piece of paper on the board, containing the 40 names of all of class D, along with their scores.
"From looking at these numbers, I came to understand there are a lot of idiots in this class. These are scores from the previous test. Seriously, what the hell did you guys study in middle school?"
#1 Horikita Suzune - 90
#1 Koenji Rokusuke - 90
#1 Yukimura Teruhiko - 90
…
Top three were tied up, each having 90 points. After that, Matsushita, Mii-chan, Hirata, Kushida, Inogashira and me had all tied for fourth place at 85 marks.
[Mission: 'Ace the test.' complete!
Difficulty: A-
Rewards:
New ability - [(B Grade) Gifted]
+30 available points]
[(B Grade) Gifted - Every 2 points gained in Academic Ability adds one additional point.]
'Oh… I nearly forgot about this one. So if I just spend all the 30 points in Academic Ability, 45 points will be increased instead? Neat.' Yamauchi thought.
With many trials and errors, Yamauchi had a much better understanding of his system than before. For instance, every time he gained 5 points from exceeding the tasks, that task would get quite a bit more difficult from the next day. Since he had used that a lot for his critical thinking, he nearly needed all of his time in school completely exceed it.
More to that, except for Academic Ability and Memorization power, all of his stats instantly increased his skill levels, so he had been planning to hoard points rather than directly use them. For example, if he used up all his points in critical thinking, but then had to go into a fight for some reason, his points would go to waste for that moment. Though it still improved his skills for the future, he wouldn't be able to rely on them at present.
But if he had his available points hoarded and then had to go into a fight, he could just directly use them to add to his skills. Not only did that seem more efficient in use, but it also helped him save time. Since every time his stats would go up, his missions would become a bit difficult to keep the difficulty at the same level. But that was the problem: the difficulty was the same, not time.
For example, if he had his stamina stat at 100 and 200 in two different cases, his mission in the latter situation would get much longer to run, but still equally difficult since he also had more points. But, in the second case, he would have to spend much more time just to earn the same amount of points as the previous one. So, keeping available points hoarded would bring him more efficiency, being able to use them in situations of need, but also save him a lot more time.
Anyways, this time Yamauchi knew that he had only managed to get in top 5 because of sheer luck– the ones he couldn't solve were at the level which only a top few could solve, if there had been any question moderately difficult, he wouldn't have been able to solve it but others like Hirata could. But what surprised him the most wasn't the fact that he got into the top 5, nor was it Sudou's wonderful score of 14 points.
It was Ayanokoji's score. At a mere 50 points, he stood at 27th rank. While Yamauchi knew that he was no fan of attention, he didn't expect him to hide his skills to this level.
"If this test was recorded, six of you would already have to drop out of the school. Would have been a scene to watch, wouldn't it?" Chabashira said, making a red line above six students' names.
The six students were Sudou, Ike, Hondou, Miyamoto, Sakura, and Kikuchi. Now, it was Ike's turn to argue with Chabashira, but Koenji casually shot him down with his words before he could waste much time.
Soon, after demotivating the already-depressed students further, Chabashira left, leaving the whole class in uproar. While the six students who failed were worried about getting expelled, top students like Yukimura and Horikita were disappointed to be placed in class D. But the rest of the class was simply worried about their private points.
Taking the chance, Yamauchi quickly took a photo of marks and class points, and went to the other side of the class, where a brown-haired, gloomy guy was calmly staring out of the window, zoned out.
"Hey, Ayanoko-" He stopped, looking at Horikita, sitting right beside him.
"Hmm? What is it, Yamauchi?" Ayanokoji asked, looking at him.
While Yamauchi really wanted to know why Ayanokoji was hiding his skills, he didn't want to blow his cover without knowing any reason.
"Well… Meet me after class, it's quite important." Yamauchi said and quickly left before he could respond.
Getting back to his seat, he decided what his plans for the next three years would be. He wasn't really that interested in what this school offered. Not points because most of his basic necessities were free. Not guaranteed jobs because with the system in his hand, he would only be a fool to go work at someone else's company after graduation. No need for admission to any universities, because that would simply be a waste of time and money, again, because of the system. Well, maybe he could use some more private points to live a nice life, but that was it. His situation was oddly similar to Koenji.
Thinking about it, he subconsciously glanced in his direction. Unlike everyone, he was gracefully polishing his nails, with his legs resting on top of the bench. He was living in his own carefree world. Though it didn't take him long to realise that someone was looking at him, and he glared back at Yamauchi.
With Hirata and Kushida calming down the whole class, everyone soon stopped their personal riots, even though they were unsure and frustrated. Soon, Hirata grabbed the podium.
"Once the classes start, I ask everyone to pay attention earnestly. Especially you, Sudou." He continued. "This month we didn't get any points. This is a problem that will hugely affect our future student life. We can't go on like this and graduate with 0 points, can we?"
One side was arguing that they should start paying attention properly and work hard, so they don't stay stuck at 0 points. While the counter argument was that they wouldn't get any points even if they did so, so there was no point.
Understanding the points, Yamauchi spoke up, "Listen, Sudou. I agree that we haven't found any methods to increase our class points, yet. But from the mere fact that there are students in class D in senior years we can surely conclude that there must be some way to, otherwise they wouldn't have any reason to just drop out of school and go meet their families. So by the time we find any methods to increase our class points, we should at least ensure that they won't get removed."
Listening to Yamauchi's reply, Sudou fell silent for a few moments, then eventually replied, "Tch. Alright, I'll try. Just don't expect too much."
Hirata nodded with a smile, "That's all we ask. Thank you."
Once things settled down, Hirata walked down from the podium and went towards Yamauchi.
"Yamauchi, are you free later? I would like to talk about how to increase our class points after school. Would you come?" He added, "Also, thanks for your help with Sudou."
"How to increase our points, huh? Alright, count me in. Can I bring in Ayanokoji too?" Yamauchi replied, nodding.
"Yeah, sure. I was about to invite him and Horikita after you. It would be better if you could bring her too."
"Uh… I'll ask her, but I doubt she'll come." Yamauchi knew that while Horikita's abilities were surely top-notch, she didn't consider herself someone from this class, the class of defects, so chances of her joining were close to none.
[Name: Yamauchi Haruki
Physical stats:
Stamina - 104
Strength - 102
Combat technique - 99
Average physical stats - 101.67
Mental stats:
Academic ability - 101
Memorisation power - 102
Critical thinking - 184
Average mental stats - 129
Available points: 30
Abilities:
(A Grade) Eye of Jealousy, (B Grade) Gifted, (C Grade) Intermediate cooking.
Disabilities:
Memory lock]
———
Many students, asking for 'benefits' from their friends, went around asking for private points. Gladly, no one who was close to Yamauchi was drained of points.
"Hey, Yamauchi! As you probably know, I spent every last bit of my private points… Can you give me a few? Only around 5,000 would work too!" As soon as Yamauchi thought that, a voice called out to him.
'Only 5,000 points? Yeah, no!' He mentally lashed out at Ike while staring at him with a deadpan expression and a sense of deja vu.
"Sorry, I am low on private points myself, too! If you get a few more, I won't mind if you send me some." He joked, taking out his phone. Ike suddenly made an ugly face, not knowing what to do.
"Just kidding, but yeah, I really am low on points. I am sending 1,000 points, don't you dare waste them." He laughed, fiddling with his phone. "Gotta pay me back 3,000 once we start earning, though!"
"Ah man! You really got me there for a second! Thanks for the points. I'll definitely pay you back 3,000, if we get them, that is." Ike quickly said and left. It seemed he had already convinced himself that they weren't getting any points back, because he definitely wasn't a person who would agree to pay back threefold.
Soon, Hirata was on the podium. With the exception of Koneji and Horikita, everyone stayed in the class. However, before the discussion could start, a voice from the speaker came:
"Ayanokoji from class D. Chabashira-sensei is calling you, please come to the staff room."
Hearing this, the gloomy guy was suddenly stared at, by 36 pairs of eyes all thinking the same thing, 'What did this guy do?' He quickly picked up his bag and left the room. He seemed as confused as everyone else present here, too.
"Let's start the discussion now. I have only managed to think about one idea till now," Hirata spoke up. "Since academically weak students have high chances of getting expelled, forming study groups to help them out seems like the most natural idea. In fact, even those who are not so bad can also join in as helpers and increase their own scores."
Removing Koenji, Hirata had written the names of students who scored 85 or more and gave each of them around 4 students. Yamauchi had Ayanokoji, Sakura, Hasebe and Sudou.
'What kind of information network does this guy have?! Not only did he somehow get the idea to add Sakura to my group, but he also added in Hasebe so she wouldn't feel alone among boys. I can get more information about Ayanokoji from the group, too.' Yamauchi couldn't help but think. 'Though since both Sudou and Sakura managed to fail this one, I'll need to teach them fully from the basics… Sigh'
After that, they all brainstormed about more ways to earn class points, but apart from tests and behaviour, they couldn't think of anything else. So, without much success in that regard, they decided to end the discussion.
Yamauchi went towards the staff room to find both Ayanokoji and Horikita coming out, discussing something. Noticing him, Ayanokoji waved his hand.
"Oh right. What did you want to talk about, Yamauchi?" He asked, while Horikita threw a curious glance.
"Hey, that's no way to talk to your teacher! Give some respect." Yamauchi joked, "Our class has decided to form study groups, you, Sakura, Hasebe and Sudou are in the same group with me. Oh, and Horikita has been appointed to teach too, though I don't remember her group."
Horikita's expression felt like she would deny it right away, but for some reason, she didn't say anything. Yamauchi knew that she was given the top four students, excluding the tutors who were nowhere close to failing, so it wouldn't matter much even if she didn't teach them. This was a sign Hirata surely trusted her abilities, but not her intentions, which was rare to say the least.
"Hmm… while I don't really mind asking it right here, you might not want her, or anyone else for that matter, to hear it." Yamauchi continued.
But to his surprise, Ayanokoji just nodded and told him to ask right away.
"Alright then. In the past month, I have observed quite a bit about you and can easily tell that you have been hiding your skills for some reason." Yamauchi said, while he felt Horikita's eyes widening. "So I just want to ask, why did you hide your skills? And, are you gonna keep doing that?"
'Huh… He surely has been spending some time with me for the past month, but I am confident that I didn't give away anything which would make him think that… but then, why is he so confident?' Ayanokoji thought. 'Well, he doesn't seem like the type to tell it to everyone, and Horikita already knows thanks to Chabashira.'
"Sigh… I didn't expect you to figure it out. You probably also know that I hate attention, and yes, that's the only reason why I did it. I just want to live a normal high school life. And yeah, from now on, I'll slowly start going all out, though don't keep your hopes high. I have only been hiding my skills a bit to ease up." Ayanokoji explained, or rather, lied.
'A bit? Yeah, right! Says the guy with one of the highest stats in the whole school.' Yamauchi cursed in his mind, but he knew he wouldn't get anything by pushing him further.
"By the way, Horikita, can I get your contact information? I am pretty sure you understand that it's close to impossible for us to reach class A without cooperating with the rest of the class. You should at least start interacting with others, if not anything else." He spoke, offering her his phone.
After hesitating, she took it with a nod and added her information.
"Don't give it to anyone else without asking." She firmly added, to which Yamauchi could only nod.
He took his phone back and said, "Well, I'll be going then. Enjoy your date!"
Before either of the two could lash out, he quickly left towards the dorms. On the way, he messaged Kushida.
Yamauchi: Hey Kushida, can you send Hasebe my contact and ask her to message me?
He didn't get any reply but a sticker of a cute cat giving thumbs up. Soon enough, he got a message.
Unknown: Hey, is this Yamauchi? Hasebe here.
Once he quickly saved the number, he replied in affirmation. Then, created a simple group chat named 'Study Group' and added four members.
Yamauchi: Are you all free today, at around 6? I'd like to meet at the library so that we can plan for later.
Sakura quickly agreed, it was really weird to see her communicate without stuttering or getting nervous, even if it was only on chat.
Sudou: I won't be able to come because of the club. It's from 5 to 7.
Yamauchi: Oh… You also have to go to the club before school, right? Then I guess we'll just meet tomorrow right after school. Does that work with everyone?
Once others agreed, he put his phone back and thought a bit. Things were suddenly moving too quickly after a month of… nearly nothing interesting happening.